[xkcd] Ballmer Peak (1 Oct 2007)
[xkcd] Ballmer Peak (1 Oct 2007)
Hover Text:
Apple uses automated schnapps IVs.
Transcript
[A graph with "programming skill" on the Y-axis and "blood alcohol concentration" on the X-axis. The Y-axis slowly goes down, but spikes at 0.1337%.]
[Cueball is making a presentation with the graph.]
Cueball: Called the Ballmer Peak, it was discovered by Microsoft in the 80's. The cause is unknown but somehow a B.A.C between 0.129% and 0.138% confers superhuman programming ability.
Cueball: However, it's a delicate effect requiring careful calibration – you can't just give a team of coders a year's supply of whiskey and tell them to get cracking.
Spectator: ...Has that ever happened?
Cueball: Remember Windows ME?
Spectator: I knew it!
When I’m drunk, either:
- my foreign-language-speaking skills are amazingly good, or
- my perception of my foreign-language-speaking skills is amazingly bad
It's both. Your inhibitions are lower so you speak more naturally and use more words without consideration of correctness which, if you think about it, is fine generally. Native speakers of a language are amazingly good at deduction of what a non native speaker is intending. You also don't pay attention to your mistakes, which makes the conversation flow easier for everyone.
For me, it's also a matter speaking louder - I have a (normal, I think) tendency to say things I'm unsure of quieter, so sometimes I've mumbled something that was correct (or correct enough) causing the very communication problems I was worried about.
The world needs more reposts of classic xkcd strips
And I need to finally buckle down and read the lot of it.
Isnt 0.14% of alcohol in blood concentration pretty high? Thats like 5 shots of 40% liquor, or 5 500ml beers.
0.1% = 1‰. About 4‰ is in the fatal range. 1.4‰ is okay.
Microsoft must have been binge drinking since Windows 7 was released. The teams that manage the rest of their software must not even know what it's like to be remotely sober, I'm surprised the Outlook server team hasn't died.